omg congratulations on getting pregnant!!!!!

[Nick]

So I was sitting here just thinking and a random ass question popped into my head. After giving it some though, I didn't have an answer for it, other than a sarcastic one.

Why do we congratulate people on getting pregnant?

 

[AcesHigh89]

It may seem easy to get pregnant, but it really isn't. When I tried having a kid for the first time, it took us 4 months for her to finally become pregnant. The kid is like a little miracle, you're happy you're gonna have it. Usually when one has a baby (well maybe not anymore) you're in a good financial state, and are in a good point of life where it's okay to bring life in this world. Thus your peers, who some know about trying to get pregnant and the preparations for the baby, congratulate you on the new addition to the family.

 

[Phantom1]

Agreed, a lot of people try for a long time to have a baby.

I think it's also because, well, what are you supposed to say? Thank you for increasing the world's population? Happy having a baby-day? Congrats seems to be the best option.

 

[Dakotah]

We congratulate people for getting a promotion at work. We congratulate people for graduating from high school/college/university. We congratulate people for getting a new job. We congratulate people for getting married. And of course we congratulate people for being pregnant.

We do all of this because all of these things are a positive accomplishment.

Some people may think that getting pregnant is nothing special, that it's exactly what we're designed to do. But this ignores the fact that the majority of conceptions do not in fact result in a pregnancy. It's well known that about 70% of fertilized eggs may never go on to become a full-term pregnancy. So for a woman trying to have a baby to become pregnant, it really is an accomplishment, and one she should be congratulated on.

 

[Oryx]

I mean, we congratulate people on things that aren't necessarily "active" all the time so I don't think this is any different. If someone won the lottery, I would congratulate them even though it was just dumb luck. The dictionary even includes getting lucky as a reason to congratulate someone. Whether or not the woman was trying hard to become pregnant is really irrelevant, because we congratulate people on things that don't require hard work, and even things such as buying a house could be really broken down so it doesn't make sense to congratulate them; it's not hard work handing over the money to another person so therefore it doesn't deserve to be congratulated.

I would be more worried about the default reaction for pregnancy being "congratulations" when some people aren't even sure it's a good thing, especially religious couples that don't have much money but don't believe in contraception or women that are going to get an abortion.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

Well I mean I think the reason is mainly cultural, we try to promote the production of offspring, especially in women. I do it to be polite but I don't really feel like they did anything special or anything unless they had some issues with getting pregnant or something, like my sister-in-law.